Giving consumers the information they deserve

Public consultations and opinion polls have shown again and again that European citizens are concerned about chemicals and their potential impact on health. Those fears are often related to lack of information about chemical substances and their uses – more than 100,000 substances that are currently in use have never been tested. Given the current state of affairs, well-known chemicals – those produced in very high volumes – cannot be assessed for their risk in a meaningful way.

European Voice

4/6/05, 5:00 PM CET

This situation is potentially harmful for human health and the environment. Taking a responsible approach is burdensome and costly for retailers and companies that use chemicals in their production because their suppliers do not always provide the necessary information. How can we tell citizens that the chemicals they come in contact with are safe if we do not know the risks that many of them may carry?

We need to have the right information about potential hazards and the European Commission’s proposal for a new chemicals policy, REACH, will provide exactly this. It will ensure that products and processes are being well controlled – and that action is taken if chemicals are deemed dangerous. REACH will make it the task and responsibility of the industry to check the safety of its chemicals. Companies will collect information about the properties and uses of substances, assess the risks, show they are dealing with them safely, and communicate this information to their clients.

REACH is part of the European Union’s global leadership in environmental protection. It is in line with the re-launched Lisbon Strategy, which aims to promote jobs and growth while respecting health and the environment. REACH will simplify the existing legislative framework and will allow the industry to work on the basis of a clear set of rules that will be the same throughout the European Union. It will also create new market opportunities for EU companies by giving them a ‘first mover’ advantage. Our industry will be able to market its chemicals as high quality products that meet safety standards.

REACH has been designed to maintain and even enhance industry’s competitiveness. The chemicals industry needs a properly functioning internal market and transparent and predictable rules that favour innovation. Over the years, REACH will foster a new type of innovation in which environmental and health effects are taken into account from the stage when new substances are being developed.

The benefits of REACH for the public are expected to be significant. Health benefits alone are estimated at €50 billion over a 30-year period. For example, according to the European Agency for Occupational Health and Safety, 3 million working days are lost in the EU each year because of occupational skin diseases.

There was some unfortunate speculation that the Commission was planning to withdraw its proposal. The REACH proposal is necessary and strikes the right balance between environmental and health protection and the needs of a competitive industry. The Commission will let the legislative process take its course. Discussions in Council of Ministers and the European Parliament are on-going, and the Parliament is expected to present its amendments after the summer. The Commission will consider carefully the Parliament’s amendments in order to take a position on them. In the meantime we remain open to arguments from all sides that aim at improving the proposal.

We are making good progress towards the goal of having the proposal adopted in 2006. Each step should bring us closer to the desired outcome, a high level of protection for public health and the environment that EU citizens have the right to expect.

Stavros Dimas, European commissioner for the environment, will be speaking at a conference organised by European Voice on 26 April, Within REACH: communicating and implementing the new EU chemicals policy.